[pboglio]

Here's some pictures as usual. I have a bunch of step-by-step pictures of the timing chain install which I'll add later. There's some other steps I'll go over too in terms of rebuilding the VVTI cam cover which has some important teflon gap rings and sneaky small o-ring seals that are easily missed that should be replaced but the manual never mentions the steps involved. I'm quickly pushing thru this build but I'll go back and review the pictures and get those uploaded with some annotations.

The exhaust manifold shown here is the old crusty one, ignore that. It wasn't cracked or anything but high mileage iron castings I usually just throw out or replace. The new exhaust manifold is coming in and it'll get nicely ported and Cerakote ceramic coated. The turbo is going back out for high speed VSR spin balancing so that'll take some time. The fuel rail is still waiting to be vapor hone glass beaded to remove some cosmetic surface oxidation but it should look brand new when it's done, that's saving me over $150. New fuel injectors, fuel insulation brackets, & fuel rail sound insulation are on order from Nissan. Every nut, bolt, clip, & gasket is getting replaced. Fuel rail pressure sensor & gasket are also getting replaced. There is some expensive fuel component bracket that I'm just going to glass bead & paint a nice coat of gloss black to prevent it from corroding in the future, not paying $57 for a metal bracket.

The pictures below still lacks the: intake manifold (existing), throttlebody (existing), fuel rail, fuel injectors, valve cover (reusing existing), new pulley, new alternator, new accessory belt & tensioner, new exhaust manifold, new turbo (already purchased from before), new a/c compressor, new starter, hoses, heat shields, new engine harness, new engine sensors, & new motor mounts, plus minor stuff. All that stuff is getting ordered over the next 2 months to spread out the cost.

In terms of overall project cost to get the engine to this point over the last +3 years it was about $12,000 including: machining, engine tooling, new OEM parts, upgraded internal engine parts, aftermarket turbo, etc. Keep in mind I'm basically re-using my original: engine block, cylinder head, camshafts (reground), crankshaft, lower girdle/oil sump upper case, front timing cover(s), plastic valve cover, water outlet housing, water pump housing/alternator mounting, fuel rail, etc. Everything else was replaced with new updated OEM factory parts. Had I bought a new long block from Nissan ($5,000) the price difference after doing all the custom engine upgrades & machining probably would probably have been cheaper and the huge amount of parts ordering and shipping costs would have been mostly eliminated. Learned a few tricks on restoring parts so for me was worth it. Shops like AMS or high end shops will just offer you a brand new long block with the engine internals upgraded because of what I just described as time & cost are so much more efficient. Plus a performance build you almost need everything brand new/upgraded anyway for reliability which is pretty much the conclusion I came to at some point during this build. So an engine build can be done on the cheap or really expensive and it just depends on the goals in mind.

The above price also doesn't include any bolt-on upgrade parts either. For the CVT transmission build it was about $4,500 since I bought a lot of extra parts I didn't actually install. By the time I'm done with replacing the suspension components to just get the vehicle driveable that is another $2,000-$2,500. Anything beyond that isn't part of this build and I'm not even thinking about it right now.

I'm debating about rebuilding/restoring the AWD transfer case since it's kinda nasty. I figured about $500 to replace all the bearings, seals, repaint the output shaft, glass bead the case, new bolts, etc. Probably will do it if I can bang it out in a week. Never going to be easier to do it with the engine & trans already out of the car.

There's still quite a bit to do before I put the engine on the hoist. Keep in mind I'm taking my sweet now as there is no rush so this gives me some time to review & think if I missed something. I'm figuring about 12-15 hours of easy labor fitting the manifold, turbo, oil/coolant lines and all the remaining stuff that isn't too challenging to do so why bother rushing. The goal is to just drop the motor in and connect the: coolant, fuel, A/C lines, electrical, & motor mounts and not have to mess with anything inside the engine bay once it's in place. I still have some engine bay cleanup and some light paint touchup but it should look respectable once the motor mounts are secured.

 

[pboglio]

Got some more work done on the fuel system.

Installed the (3) Bosch fuel injectors (62829) stamped with injector ID 0 260 500 090. Had to buy (1) Nissan fuel injector (16600-1KC0A) stamped with injector ID 0 260 500 092 because RockAuto had only (3) Bosch injectors in stock and they are out of stock national backorder.

Clearly there is a problem here, the injectors codes don't match. Those (3) boxes all have the correct 62829 sticker for the Nissan Juke application but the wrong P/N stamped on the injectors as I've seen pictures of the Bosch 62829 and the ID code actually are supposed to match the OE Nissan injectors. Not sure what happened. The last (3) digits are typically the Bosch identifier for flow rating and they obviously don't match up. At this time I can't confirm if these are exact OE replacement or if it was a mistake at Bosch and they substituted.

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to spend a small fortune & buy (3) OEM Nissan injectors + the original (1) OE Nissan injector I bought to make a matched set of injectors. I'll keep the Bosch injectors and might send them out with my old original OE injectorsto get flow data & cleaning and report back. If they look good and match with stock then I'll buy in the future another (1) Bosch Injector to make a full set.

For now the Bosch injectors are on permanent backorder so I'd advice in the future for anyone to not buy Bosch #62829 fuel injector for the Juke unless the ID code match exactly the stock OE Nissan injectors. If they don't matchup then simply return them before opening up the plastic sealed bag.

 

[pboglio]

While I'm waiting on parts I had some time to port the stock Juke exhaust manifold.

Very nice cast manifold design with a raised merge collector design and internal flow divider for Runners 1,4 & 2,3. This divider is critical to reduce engine backpressure at low/mid rpms but at higher rpms it does becomes a slight restriction. Most aftermarket exhaust headers will eliminate this flow divider on a single scroll turbo which tends to hurt spoolup but help topend.

The stock manifold runner ID are about 1.680" x 1.060" wide slot or 1.420" ID equivalent round opening. The collector is 1.830" I.D. Couple of areas where the manifold has issues are the first bend on the internal runners, each has a sharp 90* bend turning in. It's almost impossible to photograph it but you can feel it. Quickly blending that with a die grinder makes an efficient turn from the cylinder head runners into the 1st bend of the exhaust manifold runners. Initially I used my air die grinder but the 30 gal compressor could not keep up with it. To avoid tool chatter the rpms have to stay up so I switched to my heavy duy Milwaukee die grinder with a stone wheel. I then finished up with a dremel and 80 grit sanding cone on a 2" extension following by a 120 grit sanding flapper wheel to polish.

The 2nd problem area is the runner leading up to the merge collector. Same problem, the 60-90* bend into the merge collector there is a sharp bend on a couple of the runners. Blending using a die grinder helps the shortside radius become smoother and flow will increase. Next, the flow divider in the merge collector needs to be thinned out and knife edged to make the airflow cleaner passing over it. Some people will shorten this divider which is a tragically bad idea as it destroys turbo spoolup and midrange power, so the height is left un-touched. The stock casting flash and parting lines are really nasty on these manifolds and the divider needed a lot of cleanup to make it streamlined. Finally the collector I.D. was increased from 1.830" ID to about 1.900" I.D. This doesn't sound like much but the way I ported the area around the flow divider which is the actual flow choke point the actual cross sectional area increase was about +18-20%. There is a limit here of about 1.900" ID to a max of 1.950" ID while still retaining the fire ring step to make a reliable seal and protect the turbo gasket from blowout. The manifold wall thickness is only about 0.140" and get's thin in certain spots so taking out much material is out of the question.

The areas not worth touching are the runner ID themselves. Again, some folks might go in there and attempt to hog that material out but given how thin the wall thickness is I wouldn't even attempt it. Probably just do a simple 120 grit polishing of the runners otherwise leaving the ID mostly intact.

Typically the Garrett T25 turbine housing style on the GTX2860R will have a 1.810" ID on the turbine inlet (i.e. merg collector) which is rated around 400 h.p. (crank) so the 1.900" merge collector ID on the ported Juke exhaust manifold compares favorably to that. My experience is that this Juke exhaust manifold could easily support 400 h.p. with the full port work I've done but of course an equal length header is going to be better. This'll match up well with the Mamba 19T/TD04HL-11 which also is theoretically good to about 390-400 h.p. (crank) and I might put that to the test on the dyno at some point but for daily driving it'll be de-tuned to about 330-340 h.p. (crank). At some point I might step up to a Garrett turbo but for now I'll run what I have currently.

I know there are shops out there that will replace these exhaust manifolds with custom welded jobs. That mostly being done to mate with aftermarket turbos. Pros and Cons: Typically a header is good for about +30 h.p. over a stock manifold on most 4 cylinder turbo vehicles. Paired with a nice short runner intake manifold and cams this is a great combo. Downside is many times the bottom end/midrange will take a hit on big runner equal length headers. Cracking is the other disadvantage with headers and for a daily it's a big concern. Heat coming off the headers is another major issue as the surface area increase is massive. The factory exhaust manifold has a small surface area to internal volume ratio which is good for lighting off the catalytic converters and keeping the heat inside.

For heat managment and corrosion resistance I'll be sending this manifold out for Swain Tech "white lightening" ceramic coating. This isn't just any ceramic paint, it's a plasma sprayed white ceramic coating about .015" thick. Over that I'll be running a stock factory manifold heat shield that's just standard Cerakote ceramic coated to keep it looking fresh.

 

[pboglio]

I talked with Majestic turbo and they are going to do a Soft Bearing dynamic balance on my Mamba 19T & TD04HL-11 turbine component and assembly. Their VSR balance machine was down but the person on the phone was saying the turbo parts get a manual dynamic balanced anyway (Soft Bearing Balance) and afterwards the VSR is just used for fine tuning and to print out the dynamic balance values. Long story short is that a good soft balance is required before putting the CHRA into the VSR anyway otherwise they are grinding huge amounts off the compressor nut, compressor wheel, & turbine wheel. He went on to saying most times the soft balance is so good that the VSR barely registers any imbalance. VSR seems to be a bit of a marketing gimmick and he was commenting on the high cost of the machine purchase but ultimately it makes little difference if the initial soft balance is done correctly. Anyway, this Soft Bearing balance is industry standard so no issues with it.

So for $150 they will do the dynamic balance and re-assemble the CHRA and loctite the compressor nut in place. I received quotes from another shop wanting $395 because they technically have to charge for a rebuild which is insanity so I said Thank you no. I can rebuid the CHRA myself in 15 minutes with new parts so I can't see that price being justified unless it's a true rebuild which this isn't.

If this works out well I'll recommend Majestic Turbo as an option for a good turbo rebuilder.

 

[Macgyver]

Thats cool. Always good to have a good responsive turbo shop.

I think you should stop the engine build here and hang the motor on a wall like guys do when they get their first Buck after deer hunting. It looks too good to use.

 

[pboglio]

Lol, I hear you.

The goal was to make the engine look factory fresh so hopefully it'll look good when I install it. Was thinkng about clear coating the engine block at one point but just said the heck with it, cars are meant to drive after all. I'm all about getting the most use out of my vehicle and so I can't wait to get it running & do some Auto-x or Track days. Mostly I'll be loading up my Juke with the mountain bike & gear and doing some epic rides, plus some daily driving to work and getting groceries. I'd like to go out West and do some hiking & riding in the national parks so the Juke is going to be an all-around type vehicle. Can't do that with the EVO X so I have to be patient until I get my butt in gear and finish this epic project.

 

[Macgyver]

I would rent a car for that. I drove out to Omaha more than a few times. Only did it once in one of my cars. It was the SHO. Thats 2500 miles you cannot get back on your car.

 

[pboglio]

True. Juke is mostly a city car anyway. I rented a Subaru Outback going down Highway 1 in California. Best $39 I ever spent.

 

[pboglio]

Switching game plan here with the ceramic coating.

After calculating the cost of Swain Tech coating the manifold/turbine/downpipe/mid-pipe the total cost shipped was going to be $900. Way too expensive. Instead I'll be sandblasting and ceramic coating everything myself using Cerakote Glacier Black or Titanium rated for 1800*F. I'm picking up the paint gun today from Harbor Freight and ordering up the paint from Cerakote. Just need to order up some 100 grit aluminum oxide for my blasting cabinet and this should be straight forward to prep the parts.

Factory exhaust manifold heat shield is quite good so that will get Cerakote Burnt Bronze to freshen it up. Same with the valve cover heatshield. This will make a nice color for various heat shields & brackets in the engine compartment as well and a good alternative to powder coating. The Glacier Titanium color would make and awesome coating for the Juke valve cover and that might be a side project later once I get comfortable prepping the plastic valve cover. For that I might roughen using scotch brite since sandblasting a valve cover is extremely risky.

Turbine housing I might run the DEI turbine or 2J-Racing/Torque thermoblanket for the T25/T28. I'm not a huge fan of the blankets as they can burn-up after awhile but it's possible the Cerakote could extend the life of a turbo blanket and keep it in good shape. Either way the manifold and turbine can't run without some type of external heatshielding even with ceramic coating so still figuring that out. For the downpipe and midpipe I'm debating running some embossed stainless heat shielding or the DEI header wrap. Thermotec make some nice tube clamps that standoff the heat-shielding and mounts it securely with an air-gap. I can also fabricate my own stainless embossed heat shielding for the pipes but it requires some sheetmetal bending for the hem edges, spot welding, and some riveting for the mounts. The Thermotec heatshield is flexible and soft which is a big advantage and I might be able to modify it to fit different lengths so that option is most likely.

 

[pboglio]

Turbo is finally back from Majestic Turbo Waco. They received it on a Friday and by the next Wednesday it was at my doorstep. Majestic did a CHRA balance for $176 w/shipping with all the parts I supplied. They did a great job and gave good instructions on how to properly pack the turbo center cartridge to prevent damage, zero issues with that. I'd recommend them for stock rebuilds or even upgrades as they have access to all of the compressor/turbines and custom machining required. I'll have to call them and ask how bad out of balance the Mamba turbo actually was but now I should be ready to go.

In the pictures you can see the neon green inspection paint on the compressor nut which they also loctited in place. I mention this way back in earlier posts but I had an old Mamba turbo I bought off e-bay and they sent me a "Tilda" turbo instead which ended up not fitting to the Juke exhaust manifold. Didn't realize it until I bolted it up 3 years later and the manifold flanges and bolt pattern didn't match. Anyway, I took the opportunity to upgrade to the latest 19T compressor (6+6 blade billet style), the high flow TD04HL-11 turbine, and larger machined turbine housing. Also upgraded to the Mamba heavy duty TD04 thrust bearing kit needed for these bigger turbos, something the original Mamba 19T didn't come stock with. Bear in mind this is before the 21TK came out and the existing 19T where running the older compressor and smaller TD04L turbine, so it was worth the effort to actually upgrade the turbo I had at the time. Also bought the mamba 3" inlet compressor bell and port matched the compressor housing inlet to match it. The newer Mamba 21TK now have all the latest tricks and upgrades so those are good to go as purchased without any additional expenditure. The Mamba wastegate actuator will get replaced with a TurboSmart 14 psi diaphragm type actuator which is superior to the piston type from my understanding. The reason for the balance was because all the parts were bought seperately and lacked the factory balance. Probably not a bad idea to spend the extra money to guarantee the dynamic balance is spot on.

For those ever wanting to rebuild their turbos a high quality pair of snap ring pliers isrequired. I purchased the Knipex 4821J31 snap ring pliers (40-100mm). Anything with removable tips are a joke and will quickly fail. Another neat tip is if you want to have a nice surface for rebuilding stuff on.......purchase a heavy duty cooking pan. Buy a nice big one and you can use it as a rebuilding steel surface that'll catch oil and clean up easily. This'll make it easy to work on wood or composite benchtops without damaging them

Last step is to get the turbine housing & exhaust manifold media blasted and ceramic coated with Cerakote. Last weekedend I also purchased the HVLP paint gun from Harbor Freight ($37) and Cerakote Glacier C-7900 ceramic paint ($70/pint). Still working on converting my media blaster from vapor glass bead honing back to dry blasting aluminum oxide. Having a nice media blaster makes the restoration/painting process so much easier/cleaner and professional looking and it's becoming an important tool in the garage. Should get started on the ceramic coating process hopefully end of next week. Long road but every little bit is getting me closer to the finish line.

 

[pboglio]

Couple of updates.

Received some more OE parts (i.e. the fuel rail insulator foam insert) which will finish out the fuel system & bracketing. Going to ceramic coat the fuel rail steel bracket so it doesn't rust again plus a few more brackets while I'm at it.

Shot some pics of my GTM 2.5" stainless steel downpipe getting aluminum oxide blasted for ceramic coating prep. The downpipe took me about 1 hr. but I'm still fiddling with setups and normally this would take about 1/2 hr or so. Ironically the stainless finish/color is close to the titanium ceramic coat finish. Keep in mind the ceramic coating will be very thin so an even media blast finish is critical otherwise any surface defects show thru the coating. I'm kinda on the fence on the titanium color I purchased. The titanium or silver ceramic coat would be a great alternative/substitute to zinc plating and probably in the future I'll simply ceramic coat where the zinc plating is corroded thru on parts. For the turbo & manifold I'm thinking of gloss black and maybe bronze color for the downpipe & testpipe but still on the fence.

I'm using 120 grit aluminum oxide and the finish is coming out nicely either way. I prepped by putting rubber plugs in the threaded holes and taped over the flange mating surfaces as those are not meant to have a media blast surface finish. My gun is setup with the smallest air & media nozzle to match my air compressor, so it's not meant to cover huge surface areas like exhaust pipes but it gets the job done. I clean it up with some Brakecleaner and Acetone with a stiff brush to get the aluminum oxide particles off. Dialing in the air gun, pressure, gravity feed bleed valve, etc. takes some effort and it's a whole lotta different then vapor blasting with glass bead. Spent a good chunk of money upgrading my cabinet to shoot dry media but it's paying off. Upgraded to a 1600 lumen adjustable angle LED light bar and it's working awesome, lighting is everything on these cabinets. Cut some custom 1/8" perforated PVC sheet for the floor instead of the stock painted steel mesh and I'm using a thin copper/teflon baking sheet as an ablative surface to absorb some of the media blast. The gun is almost like a light saber when the air trigger is pressed, pretty much cuts thru anything non-metal or thin if it's close enough. In the hopper I'm also using some PVC sheet to also protect the paint job. The window is protected with a mylar clear sheet meant for protecting the viewing window on commercial blasting cabinets. Don't mind the garbage bag in the blasting cabinet, that'll probably get replaced with white PVC sheet. As odd as this sounds I'm trying to keep the paint job mint. Any exposed metal in the cabinet would rust instantly when I switch back to Vapor honing so protecting the paint job is critical.

For those that don't know when you media blast the vacuum setting has to be dialed in....too much vacuum on the vacuum cleaner and it sucks all the media out of the cabinet......too little and all the paint and rust drop back into the media and not out to the vacuum filter which then contaminates the media and gun. They sell a "wastegate" that opens up another fresh air pickup that reduces the vacuum draw from the vacuum cleaner. I sort of fabbed a wastegate to dial this in until I can visibly see the aluminum oxide drop out of suspension in the air stream. Sort of like tuning a car...lol.

Starting to realize how much water my Craftsman 30gal air compressor is throwing out. I'll have to get a large water/oil separator from Harbor Freight before I attempt to paint/ceramic coat anything. So it should take me about another 1 week to media blast the exhaust manifold & turbine then setup a little paint booth in the garage with some cardboard to ceramic coat everything. This has taken a few weeks to get all setup which is what caused me these longs delays.

This painting/media blasting exercise has been a long drag on my schedule but hopefully I can crank thru this quickly and finish up this darned engine before too long.

 

[turbo noob]

Super clean

 

[pboglio]

Took some time to gets supplies to build a little painting rack for my parts. It's going to have basically (2) Dewalt adjustable sawhorses with some aluminum rod, rotating hangers, & paint hooks. I'm setting it up in the garage and it'll have (4) long aluminum rods mounted vertically that'll have garbage bags wrapped around it to act as an overspray booth. I'm thinking with this setup the overspray will be minimal and any paint debri that gets out I can easily vacuum up. Also went out and bought a water/filter seperator for the air compressor and I'm using a desiccant dryer filter attached to the HVLP paint gun to handle the air compressor moisture.

The entire ceramic coating prep is going to be long and tedious. Parts are already 120 grit aluminum oxide blasted. Need to bake parts at 300*F for 15-30 minutes, then clean with Acetone, bake again. Finally start masking parts while using rubber latex gloves to avoid fingerprints. Hang, then start shooting the paint. Temp in the garage is going to have to get kicked up to over 60*F so that'll be fun. I'll have my oil heater and a 500W Halogen lamp to help get the garage temps up inside my fully insulated garage.

Starting to look into building a fixture for building a custom 3" downpipe and catted midpipe. I have the 2.5" GTM downpipe and stocker to setup the fixture with. There's nothing wrong with a 2.5" downpipe per say. But for this particular build a 3" will help keep the engine backpressure to the absolute minimum. Still have my GESI highflow cat (3" ID/4" OD) I was going to be using on the EVO X but now I'll save that for the Juke 3" catted midpipe. These GESI cats are nearly equal to a testpipe in terms of flow and of course they are EPA rated. Paid something like $350 for that cat so I'll have to buy another one for the EVO X, probably one of their UHO ultra high output units (500-850 hp rated).

Depending on how quick the Mamba 19T turbo spools I might switch later to the TD04HL turbine with 9-blades to get the turbine backpressure lower but I'll see how the 11-blade turbine works first.
I'd like to save up for a Garrett G25-550 or G25-660 but I just don't see dropping $2,000 for a turbo upgrade in the short term with the amount of money I still have to spend to complete the build project. The tune I'll have setup is probably more suited to a bigger turbo (i.e. linear power band) anyway.

 

[Macgyver]

Mamba spools up fast. Too fast sort of. At least for the FWD Jukes.

 

[squirtbrnr]

I'm setting it up in the garage and it'll have (4) long aluminum rods mounted vertically that'll have garbage bags wrapped around it to act as an overspray booth. I'm thinking with this setup the overspray will be minimal and any paint debri that gets out I can easily vacuum up.

What!? This isn’t going in the kitchen? Haha.

I’m impressed with just the tooling and other stuff that goes into just being able to do things like the ceramic coating or other parts of this project you’ve had to do.

 

[pboglio]

Mac,
Mamba turbo I'll have to see, hoping it doesn't spool too fast but the 9-blade turbine is known to be slower spooling from what the Volvo guys talk about.

Squirtbrnr,
Nothing in the kitchen but I didn't say anything about the living room....lol.

It's definitely fun to buy the tooling & upgrade it to make it work for the projects. Painting & ceramic coating are going to be big game changers for sure even though it doesn't seem like a big deal it's so convenient to blast a part in 5 minutes then have it immediately ready for a fresh coat of paint or ceramic. The tooling is just a huge time saver but does add to the time/expense on projects but in some cases there's just no other option than to bite the bullet and buy the equipment.

 

[pboglio]

Painting is now complete......for now.

I setup a portable paint booth in the garage which I'll show later. Bought some adjustable sawhorses, aluminum rod, clear heavy duty garbage bags, swivel hangers, s-shaped hangers, etc. Built essentially a painting tent/booth with a parts hanger setup. Pictures below show my drying rack which was setup in the living room since I had zero space left in the garage. That was a portable scaffold that worked out great. That also would make a great painting booth as well with some plastic bags or tarp. Could hang a lighting system and mount an air filter/ventilation setup on that thing. Nice thing is that scaffold folds down flat when not in use.

Painting was tedious and somewhat messy. Surface prep is critical. Used acetone to clean and then air blast any debri off the surface while using rubber gloves. Important step is to wipe the parts down with the acetone or brake cleaner. I picked up a lot of aluminum dust on the paper towel rag, spraying with Brake clean won't remove that without wiping it down vigorously and blowing off with the air gun.

Masking the parts took about 1-2 hours which definitely wasn't fun. The ceramic coating is somewhat toxic and even using a respirator mask I was getting some vapors thru. Some guys might dig that but I was seriously worried about passing out so I was painting as quickly as I could. The Harbor freight paint gun performed amazing for $37 and it was mostly trouble free. It has an adjustable air regulator set to about 30 psi for this application. On one spot I accidentally touched the downpipe up against the plastic bags but instead of stripping the paint I shot right over that area and let the paint level out, can barely be seen by eye now that it's drying out.

Drawbacks are this type of coating you have to paint parts quickly one after the other as the coating/paint starts clogging up the gun. Maybe that's a normal thing using a paint gun but since I have zero experience with paint guns it was psychologically affecting how I painted. Right at about 30 minutes in the gun was acting a bit funny. Basically if you stop painting for 5-10 minutes then it has to be stripped, run thru with acetone, then washed and reloaded. Not too bad if you stay organized and have a drying rack already setup but you kinda have to be quick about it.

You can see the titanium color in the pics. While painting it was nearly the exact same silver color of the base stainless steel sandblasted tubing and the exhaust manifold. This was very frustrating because I could barely tell where the paint was being applied without seeing the wet shiny surface finish. So the coating went on a bit thick because I was constantly re-applying & not sure if there was sufficient coverage. Next time with high intensity lights this wouldn't be a problem. Now that the coating is curing it's getting that deeper titanium color which is sort of a silver-brown tint but initially it was more of a silver color. Partial cure is 24 hours and full cure is 5 days air drying. I'd figure I used about 3 ounces with an extra bit wasted to keep the paint hopper loaded. Cerakote charges $70 for 16 ounce or $35 for a 4-ounce. The 4-ounce tester is a good size if you are organized about painting everything immediately. But the 16-ounce is a better deal if you are doing multiple shots like I'll be doing. I'd say this color is probably the best compromise all-around as it's between silver and the bronze. Might buy black for the heat shields to keep the color coordination looking good, still thinking on that. Maybe the Silver color would be a good contrast to the titanium while still keeping an OEM look to the heatshielding.

Mentioned this before but this is the Cerakote-Glacier series good to 1800-2000*F so it's thicker than the standard coatings but has fewer color options. It was so thick it wouldn't filter thru the 150 micron filter they recommended, adding to the anxiety. Next time I'm using a cheap harbor freight paper filter setup.

Overall results came out looking really good. The first pics are with the masking all removed, but the camera flash is making it look way more silver than it actually is. The other pics show the true color which is getting that silver-brown color typical of titanium as it starts curing. Keep in mind the goal here is to prevent rust and keep some of the heat down. The exhaust manifold doesn't look amazing like the downpipe because of the cast iron surface finish, but it's going to payoff with significant heat reduction. Definitely not a pro-painter and I was working in confined space trying to shoot those parts as quickly as possible with some of the worst lighting possible. But the paint gun and ceramic coating make a big difference and this can easily be done at home with a decent media blaster to prep the parts.

Final point is price. Setting all this up cost some money even already owning a media blaster. But the ceramic coating itself is $70 per 16-ounce with 3-4 ounces used. Sending out to a professional paint shop for the exhaust manifold it's about $150, turbine housing $100, downpipe $75-$100, and $75-100 for the midpipe. Factor easily $75-$150 round trip shipping to a paint shop. Total would have been around $600 for Cerakote ceramic coating on the outside. Had I used Swaintech ceramic coating it had been around $900-$1,000. I can now shoot these types of parts for about $20-$40 cost whenever I want to without the downtime though it was a bit messy. Little bit costy up front, but nothing beats being able to knock out professional results at home.

 

[pboglio]

Here's my little paint booth. It came in pretty handy. Caught most if not all of the over-spray and also has the ability to hang the parts on rotating hooks or to flip the part over and hang from both ends. I can also fold it as-is and lay it against the wall until I need to paint again. Basically, I used (5) heavy duty clear garbages bags split-open on the top & sides and used rubber-bands to secure on the aluminum rods like a pole tent. If I ever do this in larger quantities I'll build a frame out of 80-20 aluminum strut with parts hangers, ventilation mounting, hanging curtains, paint gun table, etc. but for now this'll get me by for this job.

The amount of overspray into the garage was minimal to none and a broom to pickup anything remaining off the floor. I bagged the engine before painting just in case. Ventilation with this Cerakote coating was a real problem.....like very serious issue that I was surprised by. Trying to think of a ventilation system since the garage was sealed up for the winter. There are some painting filtration units I could use but the VOC are kind of tricky to filter out.

Anyway, I also used this set of hooks from Homedepot cause they were cheap but Cerakote also sell bearing swivel mounting hooks. This was kind of necessary to hang parts securely while also being able to rotate them for better coverage. Cerakote sell a nice mix of thin racking hooks that would be perfect for these types of jobs plus many other necessary painting accessories for racking, painting, etc.

Next up: Going to ceramic coat the compressor housing on the turbo & the heat shields using the Cerakote C-7600 Glacier Black. Sort of a semi-satin gloss finish but more glossy than the titanium. I'm not a huge fan of the matte-finish look everywhere, I think it's starting to get played out. It initially looks cool but doing a flat-matte finish everywhere just looks somewhat stupid. The titanium coating on the exhaust manifold & turbine look normal flat-gloss titanium, but the downpipe & testpipe are definitely flat matte finish due to the differences between the stainless pipe and cast iron surfaces and how the sand blasting affected that. For parts that don't see mega high temperatures the sand-blasting I don't think needs to be as rough as the 100-120 grit and I might try something more like 180-220 Grit on aluminum pipes to get some smooth satin finishes. On those parts I can also go thick on the coating application since I'm not worried about paint-pop from extreme thermal cycling. The Glacier Black C-7600 either way is a semi-glossy ceramic coating so it's a good contrast the to titanium or silver in terms of surface reflectivity. This'll give a nice clean OE look to the valve cover heat shield & exhaust manifold heat shielding plus I'll also coat the mounting brackets for the TCM and ECM that are all corroded. Painting these parts will save the cost of having to replace them while making them virtually corrosion proof.

I'll post up pics of the final color co-ordination of the engine parts but the aluminum intake charge pipes are a red wrinkle coat paint finish, compressor housing & heat shielding ceramic coated glacier black, exhaust components ceramic coated glacier titanium. All the silicon hoses will also be black with stainless clamps. The Synapse diverter is a black wrinkle finish already. Intercooler may be completely coated in a thin heat dissipating Cerakote Arctic Black coating but that'll come later. This is more for corrosion resistance but also some stealth. Valve cover I'm debating on colors/coatings but for now just going to leave the OE black with some polishing. Later on I might black wrinkle coat the timing chain cover but I don't want to strip it off the engine to paint it this go around, maybe later when it gets all corroded again.

Pics below show the Glacier C-7600 Black and Glacier C-7700 Silver on a Honda Civic Type-R. You can see how the surface finish under the paint makes the difference.

 

[pboglio]

Just ordered up some:

Cerakote Black Velvet C-7300
Cerakote Glacier Silver C-7700
Cerakote Gun Metal C-219

Made a long list of parts needing painting but it's like 20-25 parts. Sounds like a lot but with the media blaster and paint gun I can run parts in batches quickly now that all the equipment and paints are available. The paint list is kind of a good way to color coordinate before hand so I could order up the ceramic coating & paints and visualize colors/finishes etc.

Priority will be the parts requiring coating before the engine will be installed. Everything else will be done later as I finalize the installation of the electrical wiring, alternator, turbo, transmission, etc. As I previously mentioned there is still some work left on the CVT transmission to do but I'm scheduling that after the engine is all buttoned up. I'll post those CVT updates in my other thread but they will be significant and really the key to holding all this extra power I'll be making. Everything is just taking 3-4 times longer than I expected. Was really hoping to be running by June/July but realistically I think September is more like it. Didn't expect to be replacing this much stuff (i.e. alternator, starter, A/C compressor, etc.) or completely repainting many of the underhood components.

So there is some stuff like the: 2J FMIC crash beam support, radiator supports, front sub-frame, front steering knuckles, etc. that will require some effort to paint but has to be done. Going to get a fresh RS front bumper & grill which'll require sending out for paint, that comes maybe next year. There is a very high possibility of me respraying the engine compartment. I'll attempt a decent factory color match but honestly the factory didn't even attempt a good match either and much of the engine compartment is undersprayed. I'm going for an OEM look so I'll get the factory paint codes and go from there. This will sort of be a restoration of the front of the vehicle. There is a bunch of stuff like sub-frame bushings getting upgraded to polyurethane, and replacement of control arms w/new bushings and such which will refresh the suspension.

Here's a video of the Zircotec Plasma arc sprayed ceramic coating process:

 

[pboglio]

Here's a dry fitup of the turbo assembly. Waiting on the gun metal ceramic coating for the compressor housing. Still have to fabricate a custom turbo inlet pipe to match the 3" Mamba compressor inlet bell I purchased. That'll wait till after the engine install.

I'm reusing the coolant feed, coolant return, and oil return pipes. They are stainless steel and just need some vapor honing glass bead or ultrasonic cleaning to clean them back up to brand new. Cost is fairly high to replace them anyway. The block-side oil return pipe is getting replaced for like $56, it's fairly corroded. There are some rubber hoses too and of course the banjo bolts & various gaskets as can be seen in the illustration. All that is getting ordered up this week so I can finish up the turbo. I already have the turbo gasket & bolts from the Mamba install kit, and the engine rebuild kit has the manifold/head gasket. I won't be running the aftermarket vibrant oil feed hose. A brand new $64 factory oil feed line cannot be beat for reliability and it has the hard line to allow proper support.

Mentioned already the Mamba wastegate actuator is getting replaced as it has unreliable boost control. The Turbosmart 14 psi actuator was ordered yesterday. Probably will buy the 10 psi spring after a bit of tuning. Typically on spring pressure the exhaust backpressure will bring the spring rating down 1-2 psi so hoping I can run it to as low as 12 psi for now. Keep in mind I have a ported cylinder head, Crower regrind cams, ported turbine/manifold, & testpipe so I'm going to be moving some decent airflow even at lowerer boost and this is a CVT afterall. Later on I'll be getting the HKS EVC7 for boost mapping which'll come with it's own high speed stepper solenoid and rpm/load mapping capability.